Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
Hawthorne was a newly-wed himself – six months, actually – at the time he wrote "The Birthmark." Think this has anything to do with his subject matter? (Source)
Leonardo DiCaprio's character quotes from Nathaniel Hawthorne in Scorsese's 2006 Academy Award-winning film The Departed.
Hawthorne was actually born Nathaniel Hathorne, but added a "w" to his last name to distance himself from some embarrassing relatives. (Source: A Historical Guide to Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Larry J. Reynold. Oxford University Press, 2001)
Hawthorne went to Bowdoin College and was classmates with both Franklin Pierce (who would eventually be U.S. President) and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (who would eventually be a famous and quite awesome poet). We wonder who was valedictorian. (Source: A Historical Guide to Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Larry J. Reynold. Oxford University Press, 2001)